Sunday Morning

Ti’ Coq the Timid Rooster

One day Ti’ Coq the Timid Rooster went to the barnyard shindig.
All of his friends and co-workers were there.
(Friends and co-workers are the one and the same when you live on a farm as chipper as Cheery Cherry Valleys!)
Everyone showed up: Ding-Dong the Dairy Cow, Scraprat the Rhyming Bunny, Coleslawp the Emphatic Pig, Ellen the Bi-curious Hen…
Even Good Ol’ Farmer Sonny showed up with a jug of his Sunshine Moonshine.
Ti’ Coq the Timid Rooster was trying to look like he enjoyed the beans and greens casserole that Scraprat the Rhyming Bunny had brought when he noticed that Chiquita, the Chipperest Chicken in Cheery Cherry Valley was coming right towards him.

Ti’ Coq was afraid that Chiquita had seen him watching her all afternoon.
He swallowed his food and tried to look proud and boastful.
Chiquita, the Chipperest, Charmingest Chicken in Cheery Cherry Valley thought Ti’ Coq was trying to be funny and chuckled.
She told him he was a Funny Li’l Rooster asked if he’d like to try the suet and chickpea masala she made.
Ti’ Coq was a little scared to try it, but she insisted.
He took one beakful, and boy, was it spicy!
He ran around like a chicken with his palette cut off until he found the trough and dunked his whole head right in!
Well, I’ll be darned if everyone didn’t think that was just the funniest thing they’d seen since Mallory the Faithful Retriever give birth to a litter of Dalmatians.
Coleslawp the Emphatic Pig laughed so much that he snorted.
Milk shot out of Ding-Dong the Dairy Cow’s nose.
Good Ol’ Farmer Sonny threw his head back so far that his lumbar readjusted itself and for the first time since he had fudged it up while rolling Big Ol’ Bertha into the recovery position he could bend down to scrape the plop off of his boot.
Ti’ Coq the Timid Rooster was a big hit!

Ti’ Coq and Chiquita, the Chipperest, Charmingest Chicken in Cheery Cherry Valley gabbed all afternoon.
They clucked about the new feeding trough by the coop, the sudden disappearance of Terri the Tasty Lamb, the rainforest, transcendentalist poets, and ska.
They didn’t know they had so much in common!
Before they could finish their discussion about Pete Tosh, the sun went down and Good Ol’ Farmer Sonny rang the bell for bed time.
Chiquita, the Chipperest, Charmingest, Chicken in Cheery Cherry Valley asked if Ti’ Coq would like to walk her to her coop.
Ti’ Coq the Timid Rooster was nervous, but he really wanted to, so he nodded okay.
When they got there, Chiquita, the CCCC in CCV asked if he would like to come inside and see her new roost.
Ti’ Coq felt that they were fowls of a feather and he would have given his left wing to have gotten closer to her right then.
In his birdbrain sprouted at least five cuttings of disastrous possibilities all sowed by some innate, inescapable quarter of his identity:
Under his bright if slightly unkempt plumage and that weird red rubber glove looking thing on the top of his head, Ti’ Coq the Timid Rooster was a big chicken.

He stammered out some excuse about having to wake up early
and scampered away from the coop like Huffy the Hamster in his spinny wheel,
his little birdballs retracting.

The next morning when Ti’ Coq woke up the farm, he felt like the biggest liar;
He knew that he was the Cock that Doodle Didn’t.

TOMORROW: Will Chiquita, the Chipperest, Charmingest, Chestiest, Choosiest Chicken in Cheery Cherry Valley decorating advice from Ellen the Bi-curious Hen?
PLUS: Taste testing the new McLambwich!